A Very Spitfire Anniversary
by Sroloc Elbisivni
Summary: Two years after the Watchtower invasion, the Team is allowed to attend the annual New Year's party. Stories are swapped, Wally is nervous, and Jason trolls. The Rogues make a flashback appearance. Like the title says, Spitfire. Based on Chapter 22 of A Year's Worth of Strange Things. Takes place in the five-year gap. One-shot.


**Basically Chapter 22 of A Year's Worth of Strange Things rewritten to be a one-shot. This takes place two years after the Season 1 finale. Current members of the Team include the original eight, plus Garth (Tempest), Tula (Aquagirl), Donna Troy (Troia), and Jason Todd (the second Robin).**

* * *

**Watchtower**

**December 31****st**

**23:27 EDT**

No one was quite sure how it had been done, but Batman had somehow been convinced to hold a New Year's party on the Watchtower. Even more shockingly, he had allowed the Team to attend.

Not all members of the League had been happy about this. Wally had been eavesdropping on Black Canary's chat with Green Arrow, who had been one of the complaining ones.

"_Come on, Dinah, having the kids there will cramp my style! How am I supposed to party without being a bad influence?"_

_"__I think that might be the point, Ollie."_

Given Batman's well-known disapproval of the chaos that tended to erupt when the Leaguers got drunk, that was a definite possibility.

So now Wally was hanging awkwardly around the tables of food set up in the main bay and trying to ignore both the glares of the irritated Leaguers (Uncle Barry was on his yearly date with Aunt Iris, and therefore couldn't rescue him…damn.) and the box in his pocket. Even though scientifically he knew the jewelry box couldn't weigh any more than an ounce at the absolute most, he would swear that it had quintupled in mass since he had tucked it in there.

All in all, it was a fairly uncomfortable situation.

"Hey, Wally!"

"Yeeaaugh!" Wally stumbled forward, drawing several glares from various Leaguers.

"Heh heh…sorry!" he called. They collectively rolled their eyes and returned to their conversations. "Don't _do_ that!" he hissed at Robin. A double take soon followed when he realized that the evil bird who had startled him into embarrassment was, in fact, Jason. "Great. As if one ninja wasn't bad enough. Clearly, you need the Wall-man's influence!" He struck one of his more ridiculous poses.

"Yeah, no. Come on and let the stiffs have their stupid party. We're all in the kitchen."

Wally turned around to ask where the kitchen was…

…only to find that Jason had vanished.

"Stupid ninja!" he hissed under his breath. A soft cackle from the duct made him glare at it before grabbing one last cookie and running off in the direction the cackle was moving.

* * *

Eventually, with some help from Blue Beetle (Nice guy, and smart enough to talk chemistry with Wally. If it hadn't been for the birdarang hurled at his head, he might have stayed to finish his chat.), Wally found his way into the kitchen and promptly smacked a lounging Jason on the back of the head. "You're an asshole."

"Wally!" Troia admonished. She had been chatting with Jason from her spot beside him on the floor.

Wally pointed a single finger at the offending second Robin. "If you ever pull something like that again, I'll tell the Rogues that you're an imposter who got rid of the first one and have them kidnap you."

"Please. Like that would ever happen."

Dick and Artemis started laughing, and even M'gann chuckled and Kaldur and Conner both smirked. Raquel and Zatanna walked into the room, looking at the rest of them like they were absolutely crazy. Which they were.

"Okay, what did we miss?' Raquel asked, plopping down on the couch next to Kaldur.

The Atlantian continued to smirk. "Wally threatened Jason with kidnapping by the Rogues. Jason was…skeptical."

Raquel and Zatanna both snorted.

"Wait, he was _serious_?" Jason asked, looking from one original member to the other.

"Yup." Zatanna let out a tired sigh and flopped down between Artemis and Dick on the couch.

"They wanted to make sure you guys were okay!"

"When was this?" Tula looked up from where she sat next to Garth, her freckled face genuinely interested.

"Almost a couple years ago now," M'gann admitted. "So, we were in Central, helping Wally stop a robbery…"

"Which was being perpetrated by the Rogues," Kaldur said, taking up the story. "Kid Flash was first on the scene…"

"As usual," Robin interjected. "Seriously, KF, would it kill you to not rush in?"

"I believe I am telling the story here," Kaldur informed the Boy Wonder. "Nevertheless, you have a point."

"Hey!" Wally interjected from where he had settled next to Artemis.

"_Anyway_…" Jason said, annoyed. "Story?"

"So, Kid Mouth here's the first on the scene," Artemis said loudly, poking Wally in the stomach. "And we're all coming up, and we hear the whole group chatting with him in the middle of a fight, and they corner him or something, and we just hear him say…"

* * *

_"__Well, you just wait till my team gets here!"_

_Artemis held back a groan from her hiding spot in the shadows. _:Y'know, there's such a thing as the element of _surprise,_ Kid Idiot.:

_"__WHAT?!" _

_The shocked outburst came from one of the Rogues, though it was difficult from her vantage point to tell whom._

_"__Baby Flash has a _team?_" _

_That, she could recognize. It was Trickster. She slipped around to the other side of the building to get a better look._

_Once she did, it took a supreme force of will to keep from snickering. Wally was tied up with streamers and dangling upside down over a mirror-like sheet of ice. Four others stood there, and she could recognize them from the villain profiles Batman had given them all._

_Captain Cold, of course, who was obvious from his blue parka, looked annoyed. His trademark gun poked out from his crossed arms, just under his scowl._

_Captain Boomerang held one of his namesake weapons, cocked behind his head and ready to throw, aimed at the rope holding Wally up. His expression was nothing but confusion. _

_Trickster, bright pink hair sticking out all over the place, looked absolutely heartbroken. He was giving Wally his best puppy pout, complete with trembling lip._

_Mirror Master stepped out of the window, looking annoyed. "And how come you never told us about this before?"_

_"__You joined a _team_?" Trickster asked, hiccupping. "Bu-but you were sup-supposed to join _our_ team! You promised!"_

:Wait, _what?_:

_Pretty much everyone on the mental link had the same thought, all directed at Wally, who winced. Robin just cackled silently to himself and Aqualad sighed._

_"__Oi, 'ow do we know these mates of yers can keep you safe?" Boomerang asked. "I reckon we ought to 'ave a bit of a chat with this team."_

_"__No, no, it's fine, they're all fine, more than capable…" Wally said hastily. _

_"__And would this _team_ be the reason you've been spending so much time away from Central?" Cold had stalked forward and was waving his gun around to make his point. It took quite a bit of psychic shouting to convince the others to stand down._

_Wally continued struggling to escape the streamers, but just made himself start spinning in midair. He slowly revolved to face the head Rogue again, a sheepish look on his face. "…Yes…"_

_"__As well as why your arm got broken?"_

_"__Well, it did happen on one of our missions…"_

_"__That's it!" Mirror Master yelled. "We need to have a talk with your team."_

_"__Wha—No! No, c'mon, Uncle Sam, _please_ don't…"_

_"__They're why Baby Flash got hurt?" Trickster asked. "I'll get 'em!"_

:Um…should we run?:

_Robin's cackles and Kaldur's sighs continued to echo over the mental link. _:No. There is no point. Just…wait.:

:For what?:

_"__Gotcha!"_

_Artemis yelped as a pair of hands grabbed her through the window she was hiding next to. She was dragged through another dimension, only catching a few scattered glimpses of endless mirrors before getting hauled out onto the pavement. There was a loud _wheeeee!_ noise and streamers shot out to wrap around her entire body, binding her tightly. Miss Martian, Superboy, Aqualad, Robin, Zatanna, and Rocket followed shortly. _

_"__I am so, so, sorry about this, guys," Wally said, slowly rotating to the left. _

_Artemis glared. "I'm so breaking up with you."_

_The reaction from the Rogues was immediate and deeply satisfying. Trickster started giggling and hugging her and welcoming her to the family, Mirror Master started squawking unintelligibly at the top of his lungs, Boomerang was yelling what were probably swears in a thick Australian accent, (and she really hoped that none of his odd slang meant what she thought it did) and Captain Cold was demanding to know if Wally had been given "the Talk" yet._

_Wally was blushing bright red, trying to sort it all out, and failing miserably._

_Eventually, they left, after a number of things had been sorted out. First and foremost, Artemis had been threatened with multiple gruesome fates if she broke Wally's heart. Once that was out of the way, they had extracted a promise that she would come over for dinner some night. The rest of the Team had been first interrogated to ensure they were trustworthy, and then similarly threatened if they ever allowed Wally, or "Baby Flash," rather, to get hurt. _

_Once they were back on the Bio-ship, everyone was starting to come out of their semi-confused daze, but it was Conner who spoke first._

_He turned to Wally with a look of pure bewilderment and asked, "_Baby_ Flash?"_

_The speedster, whose face had turned the same shade as his hair, sheepishly yelled, "Shut up!"_

_And that was that._

_At least until Wally got a severe concussion on a recon mission._

_The rest of the Team woke up in the middle of an indoor rainstorm and were tied to chairs for the duration of a three-hour lecture on why they should take better care of Kid Flash._

_Flash showed up halfway through and joined in._

* * *

Everyone was laughing by the end of the story.

Jason just snorted and crossed his arms. "Yeah? Like they could ever get the drop on me."

Wally rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Y'know, once they realize that the Team has gotten bigger, they're going to want to do background checks on all of you…and probably meet you…"

"Oh, _hell_ no," Jason said, looking horrified. "Gotham's got plenty of crazies."

Dick shrugged. "The Rogues are pretty whelmed—unlike the majority of the Arkham folks. Hey, two minutes till midnight, if anyone's interested."

Wally looked up at the clock to see that indeed the Boy Wonder was right. Everyone else started to move into more-or-less couple-like formations after learning the time. Jason and Troia started shifting closer to each other (very, very, slowly), Zatanna plopped herself down on Dick's lap, Rocket subtly shifted herself close to Kaldur and made sure he wasn't looking at Garth and Tula with their arms around each other, Conner pulled M'gann a little closer, and Wally snagged Artemis's hand and motioned at the door with his head. She got up and followed him.

"Okay, please tell me you're not proposing, because that would be _way_ too cheesy," she said as soon as he door closed behind them.

Wally fidgeted nervously, trying very hard not to think about how sexy she looked in her tight pine green dress with a little scoop neck and a flare just above the knees and long sleeves that clung to her arm muscles and _dammit Wally you're not thinking about it…_

"No, I just…" He carefully pulled the box out of his pocket and played with it. "We're both going off to college soon, and I just wanted to say that I…I really care about you. And I know that a lot of things are going to change, but…" Wally took a deep breath and opened the box, holding it out to her. "It's not a big thing. Just, like, a promise. To stay friends, no matter what happens. Outside of the whole crime-fighting gig."

Artemis just stared into the box for a minute, and then slowly and carefully pulled out a small silver and emerald arrow pendent on a thing silver chain.

"It's…it's bea—very pretty." She quickly corrected herself, blushing furiously.

"Beautiful," he said firmly. "Just like you, babe." Wally carefully took it out of her hands and leaned forward, vaguely hearing everyone else count down from ten.

He deliberately slid the chain around her neck, fastening the delicate clasp as gently as he could, doing his best not to snag it in any of her long blonde hair.

"_3…2…"_

At _one,_ she pulled him forward and let her lips explode onto his as _Auld Lang Syne_ played somewhere in the background.

_Best New Year's ever._


End file.
